The subject of this invention is in the field of medicine, particularly surgery, and is intended for the treatment of benign tumors and angiomas. An hemangioma is an angioma, or tumor, formed by an anomalous proliferation of vascular endothelium, forming an undesirable mass, which can occur anywhere in the body. The resulting disease is known as hemangiomatosis.
At the present time the main methods of hemangioma treatment include surgical management, radiation therapy, physical influence from the effects of electromagnetic waves (in ranges including low, high, ultrahigh, and super high frequencies), cryotherapy or hyperthermia, and chemical treatment consisting of sclerotherapy using irritating agents.
Sclerotherapy as a method of tumor treatment is used mainly for external angiomas, located on the extremities of the body (head, neck, face, lips) and includes the introduction into angioma's lacunae of such chemical agents as 60 percent glucose solution, 76-96 percent ethyl alcohol, 1-3 percent sotradecol, and sclerovein. Reference 1, listed on page 13 of this specification provides a more detailed description of sclerotherapy.
For hemangiomatosis of internal organs the use of sclerotherapy is excluded, mainly because of the danger of the sclerosants getting into the organs and other systems through blood vessels associated with the blood circulation peculiarities of the hemangioma, and also because of the difficulties in reaching the tumors.
It is well known, in case of hemangiomatosis, the liver is most often affected. According to several different authors, 9 to 20 percent of patients who were surgically operated on for liver neoplasms had cavernous hemangiomas. These data are reported in references 2 and 3, listed on page 13 of this specification. For 59 patients with liver nodes, 20 (34 percent) of them who had received treatment at the Vyshnevsky Institute of Surgery, had hemangioma. This is reported in reference 4, listed on page 13 of this specification. A list of similar examples could be continued. It is clear that hemangiomatosis of internal organs is a rather wide-spread disease. In almost 50 percent of the cases, treatment is needed in spite of its benign nature and lack of clinical symptoms.
It should be also noted that the practice of surgical removal of hemangiomas is not yet fully accepted. Some authors consider that only easily removable hemangiomas should be repected, supposing that the risk of an operation in other cases is greater than the risk of a rupture or hemorrhage. See references 5 and 6, listed on page 14 of this specification. It is known, for example, that in 5 percent of cases treated by surgery, a spontaneous rupture of hemangiomas is experienced. Such a rupture leads to a lethal outcome in 60 to 80 percent of cases in which it occurs. This is reported in reference 7, listed on page 14 of this specification. Also, it is known that among surgical treatments for hemangiomas of internal organs, 3 to 11 percent are lethal, and general surgical complications occur i 25 to 50 percent of the cases. This is shown in reference 8, listed on page 14 of this specification. Nevertheless, at the present time, surgical treatment of hemangiomatosis of parenchmal organs is preferred over other treatments. Surgical treatment consists of either removing the organ, or a part of it together with the tumor, or in ligation or embolization of the main tumor-feeding blood vessels. In cases of a widely affected organ, an inconvenient location for surgery (for example, near main blood vessels), or a multiple nodular form of hemangiomatosis, surgical removal is impractical. The alterative in such cases is an X-ray endovascular occlusion or a ligation of the blood feeding vessels.
A known method of liver hemangioma treatment, by the ligation of the liver artery, is used in cases of unremovable tumors. This method is described in reference 9, listed on page 14 scale, however, because of lethal liver necrosis, which, according to some authors, develops in 19 percent of observed cases. This is reported in reference 10, listed on page 14 of this specification. Besides, this method requires a surgical operation, which is not always possible on patients with severe somatic disorders.
Another method, closest to the method of this invention, is the method of liver hemangioma treatment, consisting of X-ray endovascular occlusion of the liver artery. In comparison with the above mentioned, this method is less traumatic, for it does not involve a surgical operation. It is recommended for unremobalve tumors, or in cases where the patient's general grave condition presents high surgical risks. This method also has some drawbacks: embolization substance can get into other blood vessels connected with vital organs; suppurative septic complications can often develop (see reference 11, listed on page 14 of this specification); uncontrollable widely spread necrosis of the tumor, caused by acute ischemia of the organ, including the tumor, can result from momentary absolute stopping of blood flow. The result is the development of severe intoxication and insufficiency of the liver and kidney. The listed drawbacks limit the use of X-ray endovascular occlusion for treating hemangiomas. See reference 12, listed on page 14 of this specification.